Ping -> Thomas Cameron

When you say she could be running more smoothly, are you talking about at idle, half throttle, full throttle...? If it is at idle, your pilot circuit could have gotten some crud in it (stuck in the pilot jets) and that could cause it to run a little rough. At 1/2+ throttle, the same applies, but to the main circuit, most likely your main jets.

How do the plugs look? Take a read at idle and after a a few minute ride on the main jets (cruise at low rpms in a lower gear such that you have to give it 1/2 throttle to keep her going). Then cut the throttle and pull the clutch and do another read. This will be your best indication of what is running lean/rich, etc.

I've had so much experience with motorcycle carbs lately, it's ridiculous. Trying to get an old Suzuki GS bike back on the road :-)

Let me know if I can be of any more assistance.

Plugs are brand new. Don't really think I can do that test all too well though because its a royal pain to get to the plugs. Can't remove them without talking half the bike apart, its impossible. And even then its difficult, frame really gets in the way bad on plug 1 and 4.

And I'm being forced to learn fast lol!

Come over and fix my carb? =)

Well, to elaborate on the problems a little bit more.

It's worst when she's cold. Gets better as she heats up.

Problems are mostly in low to mid throttle and low-mid range rpms. At idle, I can hear the engine randomly for a split second idling faster, than dropping back down.

Now I do remember this, a few weeks ago, when I first had the problems, I took it by a shop and they did a quick check and we found that the exhaust pipe on the header for cylinder number 1 was at around 160 degrees VS 400 degrees on the other 3. So something definitely wasn't right w/ that cylinder. This is also when I had the sudden power loss at 9,000 rpms. But as I've said before, resyncing the carbs solved that, and it was mainly that cylinder that I had to make most the adjustments on. So I figured that it probably wasn't getting a combustible mixture all the time.

However I'm wondering if maybe that cylinder still is not always firing. If that were the case, it would explain the idle bouncing around like that if the cylinder was randomly going on/off.

I guess maybe I should go buy a thermostat that can handle the exhaust pipe temps and check the temperature on that pipe and see if there still is a temperature difference.

-- Stephan

Have zero knowledge of bikes but what you are describing sounds like it could be an ignition coil issue. Faulty or a bad connection?

I've thought about that too. It does have an individual coil for each plug, so yea it may be possible that coil 1 is possibly bad. I suppose I need to actually tear it all apart again and check the resistance on it.

-- Stephan